Back in ancient times when multi-legged beasts ruled the earth, there were a lot more standards. Or maybe there were just fewer total things resulting in fewer total variations, which looks like more standards.

In any case, if you got a 7408 IC from one manufacturer, it was pretty much equal to a 7408 from any other manufacturer. Even connectors were more or less standard. If you plugged in one PCB mount DB25, you could plug in just about any PCB mount DB25. There were variations, just not as many as now. Today, though, there are a very large number of variations to a standard footprint. For example, while the pin footprint on most Ethernet jacks matches, I’ve probably seen a dozen different arrangements of mounting and alignment pins.

Another area that can throw monkey wrenches all over is the dreaded metric v. SAE units. This seems to pop up most often with connectors, as in this image, but it occasionally shows up on other types of parts as well. The footprint here is for a 0.1″ (2.54mm) pitch connector. The connector has 2.5mm pitch. It would be fine for three pins, maybe four or five. But beyond that, it’s just not going to fit.

I don’t really understand the logic in 2.5mm pitch. If 0.1″, which equals 2.54mm weren’t such a ubiquitous standard, 2.5mm would make sense, but as it is, it’s just too close. It’s close, but they aren’t the same. 2.5 != 2.54.

Duane Benson
It doesn’t seem like much difference in mm, but in beard-seconds, it’s 4,000* units off

*By some definitions, including the Google converter, it would be 8,000 units off